Jonathan Ruffer fails to hit the jackpot after betting on the US stock market

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Jonathan Ruffer, the UK’s multi-millionaire businessman, has admitted that his well-known investment shop “failed to meet its target” for customers for the second year in a row by delivering less than cash.

Ruffer, who founded Ruffer Investment Management three decades ago, said in his annual review that the £20bn firm’s strategy was lagging behind its revenue targets for 2024 and 2023.

The philanthropist, who is also the firm’s chairman, said that its investment strategy was skewed by the belief that the US stock market would fall and that the Japanese yen would strengthen against the dollar. wrong in Ruffer’s finances.

The S&P 500 is up more than a fifth in 2024, with Ruffer’s Flagship Total Return fund returning 4.4 per cent in the year to the end of September, compared with the UK bank’s 5.25 per cent rate, according to factory.

“We were positioned for a collapse when the S&P was so low: that was wrong, but not wrong – the nature of bubble forecasts is that they somehow provide low confirmation on the journey and to the moon,” Ruffer said of his annual presentation.

“The yen went down and the traders went up. If we had put 4 percent of the portfolio in equity offsets, we would have had solid results over and over again . . . we didn’t do so, because we were very concerned about the risk of financial investments as a group of assets.

“The absence of one mistake would not have single-handedly saved our performance in terms of earnings and revenue, but it would have helped a lot.”

His comments come after he received a share of the firm’s £89.8mn payout for the year to the end of March 2024 – equivalent to £2mn for each of its 44 partners – down from £95mn last year. Operating profit fell 14 per cent over the year to £119mn.

Ruffer’s flagship Total Return fund aims to provide “sustainable positive returns, regardless of how the stock market performs”. But this strategy returned a negative 3.8 percent by 2023.

The boutique fund has been bearish on equity markets, taking defensive positions in long-term, inflation-linked bonds while betting against growth yields in the short term.

But Ruffer said the company will maintain its investment status. “We continue to fight over the bull’s dream; The assets we choose feel like they have good days followed by bad weeks.

“It’s no coincidence that we still have a portfolio that can take full advantage of a system shock of some magnitude. Why would anyone say that, without arrogance? It has to do with three words and the price level of the major American equity market: S&P at 6,000 “.

Investment firm last year cut about 20 pieces from its 330-strong workforce at the time, including positions in its private client and risk groups.